By Aidan Joly
As conference realignment rolls on in college sports, questions have lingered about two of the best college basketball programs in the country, a pair of programs that lie on opposite sides of the country.
Gonzaga and UConn. Would the powerhouses head to the Big 12? Or would they stay put in the WCC and the Big East.
At the end of the day, Big 12 commissioner Brent Yormack said that after the additions of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah to bring the league to 16 teams starting in the summer of 2024, it won’t expand any more.
What about Gonzaga and UConn? It’s good that they will stay in their respective leagues. It is fair to say that both of these programs don’t need the Big 12 and will be better off in the long run not being on the addition list, for different reasons.
First, let’s talk about UConn. One major lesson in the past 20 years of conference realignment is to know what you’re good at. Look at schools like Nebraska, Miami, Boston College and Maryland. For the most part, those athletic programs have been worse since moving to new leagues.
Sure, it’s more money from television rights deals, but does that improve the day-to-day lives of fans? Fans want their teams to be good, to play in games that matter, and have regional rivalries.
For decades, UConn had it playing in the old Big East. Then, the program lost it with its move to the American Athletic. It recently got it back by moving back to the Big East, and now is back on top of the basketball world with its fifth national title since 2000 this past season, more than any program in the past 30 years.
You can’t forget about the women’s program either, which has a claim of being the best women’s program in the country with 11 national titles since 1995, but has not won one since 2016 as other programs catch up to Geno Auriemma and the Huskies.
A move to the Big 12 would have created intrigue, but it would have made it far more difficult for UConn to win conference championships, consistently earn high seeds in the NCAA tournament, lose regional rivalries and potentially lose territorial dominance in the northeast. It also has a synonymous connection to Madison Square Garden, which it likely would have lost, too.
On top of that, in an era of student-athlete empowerment, logging thousands of miles more in travel would have hampered their well-being. There’s a financial cost to that, too.
UConn let football drive the bus in the move to the American in 2013, which was a mistake, and it would likely be doing the same if it had moved to the Big 12. That money would have been huge – and much of it likely would have gone to overhauling a football program that struggles to make any sort of wave in its own region, much less nationally.
If the ACC comes calling in a few weeks, months or years, this might be a different discussion. But for now, UConn knows what it is good at.
Now, let’s move over to Gonzaga.
The Bulldogs have been flirting with other conferences ever since it became a national power more than two decades ago.
Similar to UConn, it would have been knocked down a peg or two with a move to the Big 12, but it would have brought much more national exposure to the program. Coach Mark Few is forced to be one of the most ambitious coaches in the country when it comes to non-conference scheduling on a yearly basis – because the program essentially disappears for the most part in January and February. And now with BYU leaving for the Big 12, Gonzaga has lost two high-profile games in the middle of the season too. It needs those non-conference games.
Gonzaga can not, and should not, be content to stay in the WCC and let its standing within the sport slip as its counterparts leave for better leagues. Now, the league is down to nine after BYU’s departure.
In the short term, staying in the WCC is fine for the program to maintain its top-10 status in the sport. How about long term? That’s another question.
The Mountain West has pushed hard to add Gonzaga in the past, but GU said no, using it as leverage for scheduling benefits and a larger share of media rights in the WCC. Now, Gonzaga needs to wait and see what happens with the remnants of the Pac-12 and see if there is any sort of merger with the Mountain West. When you look at the way money is tiered for NCAA tournament performance, the Zags are a cash cow for the rest of the league, which has always been a three-bid league at best.
The Pac-12 has looked down on Gonzaga for a long time, due to the school not having football. Now, it should go to wherever Cal, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington State, or some combination of the four go. That should be the Mountain West.
As mentioned before, Gonzaga has always flirted with other leagues. The Big East was one of them, but those talks have fizzled, likely due to the geographic aspect. If Gonzaga was in the Midwest, it would have surely joined the Big East by now.
Gonzaga moving to the remnants of the Pac-12, or joining during some sort of merger, feels like the best move to set up the program for long-term success, even after the 60-year-old Few’s coaching days are up.
Realignment never ends. It has always defined college sports, and the conference landscape will certainly look different in 50 years. Gonzaga and UConn and defined by basketball. There’s a price to that, but the experience is surely much better.
Is that not the point?
AJ Hoops 